Sale of Pine Hill GC in Brewer could be completed in 2 weeks

By •March 30, 2009 11:18 pm

BREWER, Maine — After more than three years of having Pine Hill Golf Club up for sale, the owners think that this time a purchase may go through.

The current owners — Pam Foss, sister Candice Morrill and brother Bob Little Jr. — have been asking $650,000 for the 125-acre property, but the sale price will likely be a little less than that, according to Foss.

The building and equipment will also be included in the sale. The golf course accounts for approximately 75 acres of the property, which straddles the Brewer-Orrington town line.

The property in Brewer is assessed at $133,000 for the land and $260,900 for the building and improvements, according to Foss, while the land in Orrington is assessed at $47,100 for a total assessed value of $441,000. The assessed value does not always correspond to the sale price.

The prospective buyers, said Foss, are from Texas, but she declined to name them until the sale goes through. They reportedly have family in the area, which led them to consider purchasing Pine Hill.

“No papers have been signed,” said Foss, “but a sale is pending.”

Foss believes that everything can be completed within the next two weeks.

Even if the sale does go through, the golf course will remain in place for a while.

“It will stay a golf course for at least two years,” Foss said Monday. She and Morrill will lease the golf course from the new owners.

The future of the property beyond the next two years may depend on the performance of the stock market, according to Foss.

“Nothing is going to change over the next two or three years, maybe indefinitely,” said Foss.

At least one rumor had the prospective owners wanting to have the runway extended at Brewer Airport onto the golf course property, ending near a new house they would build.

“He [uses] a Gulfstream jet. It doesn’t matter how much that runway was extended, he was never going to [fly] that in there,” said Foss with a laugh.

She did point out that the husband “likes to play golf. So it may stay a golf course.”

As much as she and her siblings will be glad to sell it, Foss would like the golf course to stay in place until 2012, when it would celebrate 50 years in existence.

Bob Little Sr. opened the golf course on June 2, 1962, laid out on a hayfield he owned. He died in April 2001, and that’s when Foss and her brother and sister took over.

At first, their plan was to run it together for 10 years, then decide what to do. They squelched sale rumors in 2002 and ’03.

In 2005, however, they showed the property to a prospective buyer, at an asking price of $950,000, but it didn’t go through. Foss said at the time that Pine Hill had been on the market since August or September of 2004.

With or without a buyer, all systems are go for the golf course this year.

They have already scheduled a number of tournaments, and she is planning for more specials this year.

“We’re going to try to get a Tuesday night league going,” she said. “We already have ladies, couples and Thursday night leagues.”

One special that ends today is if members pay their membership fee in full, then they get it at last year’s price.